Static Crush {M/M} ✔

Chapter #38

Minutes later, they find themselves sitting in the living room again, listening to Violet apologize profusely for imposing on them so late and for the desperate attempt at burglary earlier. She explains that Damo told her everything about the fight with Hale, and she'd been the one to convince him it would be better to steal than risk getting turned in or shut down. She talks animatedly from her place glued to Damo's hip as if their clothing's been stitched together there. Hale goes through various checks to ensure this isn't a shared hallucination or fever dream. It isn't.

Hale pours her a cup of coffee and adds two sugars and a cream, as per her instruction. She accepts it and holds it between both hands like one might a baby rabbit.

Hale cannot comprehend how someone who looks the way cotton candy tastes could marry Damo.

"So, how'd you two meet?" Theo says.

Hale can sense at least three of them wince. Small talk and an introduction to a surprise fiancée at 2AM after everything Damo told them makes for an off-kilter atmosphere.

"At a bar in NeoTonto," Violet says.

"Same bar we all met, actually," Damo says. His face splits in a wolfish grin and Violet twists in his arm to give him an adoring look.

Hale was just thinking how out of place Violet would look there too, when her denim jacket slides a little off her shoulder and the peek of a tattoo shows. Not a dainty flower or delicate script either, but a poisonous green snake looping through the eye sockets of a grinning skull. She shrugs the jacket back on.

Normally, Hale might dismiss the juxtaposition between her tattoo and style of dress as nothing but a unique quirk when she says, "Yeah, I think I just saw him sitting at the bar with all these bandages, so I asked what happened to him and we just... fell in love right away, I guess."

She smiles and giggles, and Damo returns it, but Hale stops cleaning the coffee Rayner spilled on the counter.

Her heart rate increases slightly again, and she opens her hands in a wide, helpless gesture that seems exaggerated. The qualifiers too speak to her uncertainty. I think. I guess.

These alone may not have been enough for Hale to determine that she's lying. Comparing her behaviour to Rayner's, though, paints a fuller picture.

Replaying the memory in his head, Hale analyzes her body language. Violet doesn't quite meet Damo's gaze, her pupils don't dilate, and her adrenal levels speak more to stress than adoration.

He could write it off. Perhaps she's nervous speaking to people Damo has a fraught history with. Perhaps she expresses herself differently from a typical human. Moreover, Rayner is a sample size of one and the closest thing to a control group Hale has for comparison, which isn't enough.

Still, something about this entire situation puts Hale on edge, and he worries at these inconsistencies in Violet's story like it's an irksome hole in the cuff of his jumper. Her profile checks out—it matches her story precisely. Perhaps it's doctored or bugged to display fake data.

Hale starts running image searches for anyone matching her physical description and includes tags for her tattoo. While that runs, he busies himself cleaning the finished coffee mugs.

It's a lucky accident that Damo can't read his thoughts now. Hale tries to maintain an unruffled air despite his suspicions. When Theo finishes asking Violet about her job at a craft store—another falsehood, if Hale's lie detection is correct—he speaks up.

"Out of curiosity. Did you consider becoming Damo's symbiont to avoid his eventual shut down?"

Violet nods her head vigorously. "Of course. It's just, I'm a little anaemic, and we weren't sure I'd have the energy to power him. Especially on the run."